For our 2018 Q3 Volunteer Day, Beacon worked with Portland Trails, a non-profit land trust, to help clean up a network a trails in the Evergreen Cemetery. We placed stone and mulch on parts of the trails to even out the surface and improve safety. Additionally, Beacon employees helped trim back invasive species and overgrowth in order to keep the trail wide for future use. In a joint effort with the crew from Portland Trails, The Beacon team achieved quite a bit during the day and was able to help bring trails back into a more usable state for the Greater Portland Community.

For our 2018 Q2 Volunteer Day, Beacon partnered with Cultivating Community for a day of supporting community-based urban agriculture. We helped build raised beds and terraces in the gardens, as well as plant a number of new fruit trees and bushes and prepare the garden for spring planting. By the end of the day we were able to build over sixteen new beds! Cultivating Community supports access to healthy, local foods in the Portland area through programs like its youth internships, CSAs, and the New American Sustainable Agriculture Project for refugee and immigrant farmers in Maine.

For our 2018 Q1 Volunteer Day, Beacon partnered with the YMCA of Southern Maine in Portland, one of the oldest YMCA’s in the country. We supported the YMCA by painting the men’s dormitory section of the building. We managed to put a new coat of paint on the walls of both the third and fourth floor hallways throughout the day, creating a much friendlier and home-like feeling in the dorms.

For our Q4 2017 Volunteer Day, Beacon teamed with Ruth’s Reusable Resources, an organization dedicated to ensuring that students and teachers in classrooms Pre K - 12 have access to necessary learning tools and supplies. We engaged in a variety of tasks throughout the day, which included sorting through donated items and stocking supplies in the teacher store. We managed to support Ruth’s in preparation for their weekend fundraiser and aided ongoing efforts to repurpose donated items.

For our Q3 Volunteer Day Beacon worked with Portland Trails, a non-profit land trust, in order to help repair the East Bridge Street Trail along the Presumpscot River. We placed stone and erosion control where ATV’s had caused significant damage and created deep ruts in the trail. Additionally, Beacon employees helped trim back invasive species and overgrowth in order to keep the trail wide for future use. The Beacon team achieved quite a bit during the day and was able to help bring the trail back into a more usable state for the Greater Portland Community.

For our Q2 2017 Volunteer Day Beacon worked with the Greater Portland YMCA. The Greater Portland YMCA serves over 30,000 individuals each year throughout the Portland area. There we spent the day preparing a garden for the YMCA summer camp, painted several rooms, and helped to clean the facilities.

For our Q1 2017 Volunteer Day, Beacon joined forces with the Boys and Girls Club of Southern Maine, a program aimed to improve the lives of youth by fostering and promoting academic success, healthy lifestyles, and good character. We spent the morning helping with miscellaneous maintenance jobs and in the afternoon interacted with the club’s members, doing our part to instill a sense of competence, usefulness, and belonging in the youth of our community through various activities (e.g. kickball, cooking, reading, etc.).